[MUD-Dev] Gender and Mud Development

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

"Koster, Raph" wrote:
>  Matthew Mihaly wrote:
> > I will point out though that our
> > best Gods have
> > generally been men playing females! Does that count?
>
> I have often heard the assertion that the best administrators in ALL online
> communities (web-based, text-based VR, games, IRC chats, whatever) tend to
> be females. I have never heard the same assertion made regarding
> female-presenting males though. :)

They say the same thing about real life PUBs. I think a female presentation
has something to do with it. Think about it, if a man came over to calm you
down, it would be an outright challenge. If a woman did it, then it could be
some welcome attention... It is more difficult for a man to communicate that
type of empathy to another man, I think.  Basically, women have more strings
to play on.  Unfair, isn't it?

As for women and programming.  I've had some groups in the introduction
course, and the best and (and some of the worst) programmers were women. 
It's mostly an experience thing.  Some of them took the course as an
addition, and had more experience with logic thinking.  Generally, boys have
more practical experience with computers and programming and thus get the
edge, but a girl can compensate for that with experience with math and
similar tasks that requires structured thinking.  Such abstract experience
is probably better than spaghetti programming experience.  In norwegian 
universities recruiting more women has been an issue, and they have tried to
improve the situation with some success...

Why this inital difference though?  Some researchers claim that women have
more need to see a purpose with what they do (thus men are more inclined to
just play for the sake of playing).  Then you have cultural differences
where computers and programming come out bad.  Human-machine interaction vs
human-human interaction. Email, the web and chatting may improve that
somewhat in the long run...

For gaming: I think there is some (american?) research that suggests that
women are more inclined to cooperate when they meet people they consider as
worthy, wheras men are going for competition. (women switch to competition
as well when they dislike the other person if I remember correctly).

--
Ola




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev maillist  -  MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev